SMERSH

SMERSH (Smert' Shpionam, meaning "Death to Spies") was a counterintelligence agency of the Soviet Union founded in 1943. It was a massive organization with five departments of different tasks, and operated abroad in order to kill Western spies during the Cold War until its disestablishment in 1987 after one revival following 30 years of inactivity. Its headquarters were in both Moscow and Leningrad.

History
SMERSH is a portmanteau of the Russian phrase for "death to spies", and was founded in 1943 during World War II to get rid of foreign spies. It was divided into five departments: the first was the main force; the second was operations/executions; the third was administration and finance; the fourth was administration; the fifth was prosecutions. Under personal command of Marshal Lavrentiy Beria, they purged Leon Trotsky in 1940 and after World War II the organization was purged. Only a few hundred top operatives were left, but by the 1950s they had 40,000 members and had moved from Leningrad to Moscow.

Their leader Rosa Klebb worked both as leader of SMERSH and later became the leader of the SPECTRE international independent terrorist organization as well, and in 1957 she was eventually defeated by the United Kingdom's MI6. In 1987 it was re-activated by General Leonid Pushkin, who put foreign spies to death but eventually needed MI6's help to bring down a rogue general, Georgi Koskov. Its final end came with the USSR's fall in 1991.